"Going Dutch" Part 1 -- DOEprojekts in Amsterdam and other artful cities in the Netherlands

DOEprojekts (Deborah Adams Doering and Glenn N. Doering, lead artists) brought their creativity and Coreforms to Amsterdam and surrounding cities in the Netherlands, during June and July 2023. Our trip was both a wonderful opportunity to be inspired by visual objects and experiences, past and present, and also a way to integrate our Coreforms into our travels.

Before our trip, we designed two slightly different T-shirts, influenced by Dutch artists Piet Mondrian (1872-1944). Our Coreforms (circles, vertical and horizontal lines, swashes and points) diverge from Mondrian's well-known visual system of horizontal-vertical lines and primary colors. DOEprojekts-Amsterdam logos extend Mondrian's visual aesthetic by adding circles, points and swashes. DOEprojekts does not (yet) limit our color palette to any specific colors.

Above: Standing in front of Piet Mondrian's last painted work "Victory Boogie Woogie" at Kunstmuseum Den Haag (Art Museum of The Hague, Netherlands) wearing our custom designed T-shirts.

Our close-up photo of Mondrian's "Victory Boogie Woogie" -- Mondrian was still painting on this canvas when he died in 1944. Some of the adhesive tape that he used to keep his painted lines straight remain on the canvas.

Above: Deborah stands behine the "Welcome to the Art Museum of The Hague" sign. "Wat fijn dat u er bent" translates "How fine that you are here."

Kunstmuseum Den Haag offered a number of ways for adults and children to creatively participate in "art works." After viewing the M.C. Escher exhibition, we sat with others and built a variety of structures, and used materials provided by the museum to create two of our "Hybr" forms.

Above: Temporary wood structures with DOEprojekts' Hybr forms in Kunstmuseum Den Haag.

Above: Empty sculpture niches at Kunstmuseum Den Haag allowed DOEprojekts to become part of the art, with Glenn holding one of our Hybr squares. 

Both the Van Gogh museum (dedicated to the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh and his contemporaries), and the Stedlijk Museum (featuring Modern and Contemporary Art ) offered opportunities for interaction by DOEprojekts.

Above: Main atrium in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Various details of Van Gogh's paintings are enlarged and projected on the atrium walls by museum curators (upper right).

Above: In the Van Gogh Museum, DOEprojekts (Deborah and Glenn) were invited to respond to various artistic prompts. Coreforms were a part of our responses.

Above: At the Stedlijk, Glenn and Deborah participated in the SoundLab, where visiting artists and others explored how shapes and sounds are connected.

Above: Deborah experimented with Coreforms' sounds in the Stedlijk's SoundLab.

There was so much to explore in Amsterdam and surroundings -- we rode almost every day to a new museum or public creative venue such as Vondel Park on the bikes provided by our host.

In a subsequent blog post, we will highlight two other unique experiences in the Netherlands -- participating in a workshop where we applied our Coreforms to the centuries-old process of creating porcelain tiles in Delft. We also visited Mondriaanhuis (Mondrian's House) in Amersfoort. Thank you to all our readers for following along!

DOEprojekts' "Pochoir Folio 002" at CENTRAL BOOKING NYC

Pochoir Folio 002 offers individuals and communities ten hand cut pochoirs (pochoir is the French word for stencil). Each pochoir-stencil is designed using DOEprojekts' basic forms, called Coreforms, as a point of departure and an invitation to participate. CENTRAL BOOKING, NYC, will be exhibiting the folio at upcoming art fairs in Scotland and France.

Pochoir Folio 002 may be purchased at https://centralbookingnyc.com/product-category/deborah-glenn-doering

Above: Deborah Adams Doering and Glenn N. Doering. lead artists of DOEprojekts Art Collaborative, juggle Coreforms between them. 

Coreforms for DOEprojekts are the zero, one, tilde, dash and period (keyboard characters).  These basic forms are also known as the circle, vertical line, swash, horizontal line, and point. Coreforms are universal forms that, when viewed from certain perspectives, may be seen as the same form.

The core concept of all artifacts and experiences that are initiated by DOEprojekts is movement. Human beings exist in a world of physical and psychological movement. When we create with Coreforms we see objects and events from different perspectives. We are changed as individuals and as communities, ideally contributing creatively to the common good.

Each pochoir may be used in multiple ways; each participant decides how to generate physical and psychological movement through their individual creativity.

Above: Pochoirs used to create lighting effects.

Additionally, DOEprojekts has created one frottage (rubbed image), using a wax block, for each pochoir. Each frottage, paired with a pochoir-stencil, shows one way that the stencil may be used. Other ways to participate include stippling paint through the stencil or using the stencil to create shadows, and then documenting various effects photographically (stencils may also be used with cyanotpe/sun printing papers). Participants may discover limitless creative ways to use these pochoir-stencils.

Above: Pochoir and Frottage 002.1.

Above: Pochoir and Frottage 002.3.

Above: Pochoir and Frottage 002.7.

The seven additional pochoir-frottagge pairs in the folio are shown below.

DOEprojekts will be showcasing "Pochoir Folio 001" in our upcoming "Celebrate 40" exhibition during the month of October in NYC (information may be found on Facebook/DOEprojeks). We are also available to create custom pairs of pochoir-frottage using our Coreforms. Inquire through DOEprojekts@gmail.com.

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Rockefeller Center's 2023 "The Flag Project" Curates DOEprojekts' "Mormors Syltkakor" into Exhibition, Archives

Deborah and Glenn (DOEprojekts Art Collaborative) were pleased to have "Mormors Syltkakor" (Grandma's Jam Cookies) chosen for the 2023 edition of Rockefeller Center's "The Flag Project." This year, the outdoor public exhibition is co-curated by City Harvest, the world's first and the city's largest food rescue organization dedicated to feeding New Yorkers in need. The 2023 theme celebrated "New York City's food and dining in all its many forms."

The free public exhibition, featuring 193 flags, opened on April 3, 2023. The flags will be displayed from April 3-12 and April 17-30, 2023 in Rockefeller Center, Manhattan, New York. After the conclusion of the exhibition, the flags will become part of Rockefeller Center's archives.

At least one DOEprojekts' flag design has been chosen for each edition of "The Flag Project." DOEprojekts entered several flag designs in the first iteration in 2020, one that invited artists to celebrate New York City in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"NYC Green" was chosen in 2020 (lower right, above). In 2021, Rockefeller partnered with the world-renowned art-photography organization Aperture to curate the second exhibition -- our "NYC Garden" was selected (lower left, above). In 2022, the co-curating organizations were The Climate Museum, The United Nations Environment Programme, and Tishman Speyer; our "Clear Skies" flag perfectly fit the "Just One Earth" theme (upper right, above). We thank City Harvest and Rockefeller Center for including "Mormors Syltkakor" in this year's exhibition (upper left). 

 

We submitted several entries to the 2023 flag food-and-dining-themed competition because we love food and we love to cook! Here are some of our images that were not selected:

Upper left: Homemade lattes in Geoffrey Beane yellow drum mugs--we've had these mugs "forever" and use them on special occasions. 

Upper right: Our wedding anniversary meal at Copinette restaurant in Midtown East, NYC. 

Lower left: Starbucks Reserve in Chelsea serves a tasty charcuterie tray, and we love their Whisky Barrel-Aged Cold Brew Coffee!

Lower right: We really thought that our "Egg Flag" would be chosen, because eggs have increased 70% in price this year, due to a number of reasons, including labor shortages and supply chain snarls. But "Grandma's Jam Cookies" triumphed over "Egg Flag."

2023 Flag Project Catalog: See other flags at this link https://www.rockefellercenter.com/flagproject;
click the catalog button at the end of the paragraph.

Deborah and Glenn

DOEprojekts.org, DOEprojekts.com (and Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)

Each One, Every One, Equal All

We, Deborah and Glenn (DOEprojekts Art Collaborative), were delighted to have the opportunity to meet artist and SAIC educator Nick Cave in December 2022. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) hosted a holiday party for SAIC alumni at Bacall's Restaurant in Manhattan, and afterward, we were invited to hear Nick Cave speak about his newest installation connecting two of Manhattan's Subway Portals (Times Square 42nd Street and Bryant Park). Cave's mosaic and video installation is titled "Each One, Every One, Equal All." [(Above L to R): Artists Julia Schmidt Healy, Glenn N. Doering, Nick Cave, Deborah Adams Doering.]

Nick Cave (b. 1959) has had a long and distinguished art career. He spoke to SAIC alums about his "sound suits," which combine dance and sculpture, and how these works became the basis for his mosaic and video installation in the subway tunnel. He described some of the challenges of working with Mayer of Munich, the atelier that produced the mosaics. His collaborative process and attention to detail inspired us.

We were also inspired by the recent Broadway play "The Collaboration." This theater production imagined the dialog between Andy Warhol (performed by Paul Bettany) and Jean-Michel Basquiat (Jeremy Pope). In the play, the two artists are introduced by art dealer and collector Bruno Bischofberger (Erik Jensen) during a tumultuous time in the New York art world -- the 1980s. At that time, Warhol was losing some of his world-wide popularity and Basquiat's fame was rising. Bischofberger encouraged Warhol to collaborate with the younger artist for a number of reasons, one of them being that Basquiat's drug use was becoming an impediment (some might say otherwise) to his artistic output.

The play highlights the tensions between two artists who ostensibly have very different viewpoints on the role of visual art. Through playwright Anthony McCarton's script, Warhol and Basquiat debate "big life questions" such as identity, commerce, culture, faith, and death. The play is both entertaining and thought-provoking, and prompted dialog and reflection by our DOEprojekts Art Collaborative.

On a somewhat less "public" scale than subway installations or Broadway plays, our DOEprojekts collaboration drew and cut a pair of Yupo stencils in February. These stencil works continue our investigation of circular shapes using our "Coreforms."

We decided to use primary colors Yellow and Blue (the colors of the Ukrainian flag) and the primary color Red (associated with bloodshed and war) as a base for our stencil prints. Our hearts ache for the people of the Ukraine as they enter the second year of war with Russian leader Putin. Several of our prints on these primary colors included gold. Gold has many associations, including victory and compassion. 

As we continue our visual explorations, we contemplate the title "Each One, Every One, Equal All" (from Cave's installation). We interpret that title to mean that each contribution to creativity, made by everyone, equals opportunity for growth in thoughts, feelings, actions.

We wish our blog readers creative months ahead!

Deborah and Glenn

DOEprojekts.org, DOEprojekts.com (and Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)

"Art Meets Art" at Documenta Fifteen

DOEprojekts Art Collaborative (Deborah Adams Doering and Glenn N. Doering) are pleased and privileged to have participated in Documenta 15 "Art Meets Art" events in Kassel, Germany, during Summer 2022.

Every five years, the German city of Kassel is host to a "Documenta" international art exhibition. The exhibition was initiated by artist, educator, and curator, Arnold Bode, in 1955; Bode wanted to showcase art works which had been labeled "Entartete Kunst" (Degenerate Art) by the Nazis. Bode reportedly titled the exhibition "documenta" because docere is Latin for 'teach' and mens is Latin for 'intellect.' The exhibition focuses on "learning through art" rather than the commerce of art.

The works for each Documenta exhibition are usually selected by an individual curator. But Documenta 15 was the first to be led by an artist collaborative. "Ruangrupa" is based in Jakarta, Indonesia. More about this art group, and how they came to their theme of "lumbung" (the sharing of rice in a communal location) can be found at https://ruangrupa.id/en/.

Ten years ago, our art collaborative, DOEprojekts, and the Keiskamma Art Project, South Africa, were part of a "satellite project" during Documenta 13. We spent 100 days working together in Kassel's Amtsgericht (Offices of Justice). Our project is thoroughly documented in the 2012 entries in this blog. Above is one photo from 2012 that shows Deborah Adams Doering, Glenn N. Doering, Veronica Betani, and Cebo Mvubu all speaking with Lori Waxman, art critic, looking at our work. Below are two photos that show the embroidery and stencils that were products of our collaboration.

It was a delight, once again, to meet with people in Kassel who supported our collaborative art action "Just Us at Work." 

Our friend Silke Emde met us in the Welcome Area at the RuruHaus; we spent the day together viewing many of the installations throughout the city.

Friends Axel Goeppert and Luba Streck joined us at the "Poem of Pearls" by the artist Birthe Blauth in the Elisabethkirche (Elisabeth Church). At the entrance of the installation, visitors walked a labyrinth. In the interior of the installation, all participants were invited to take a genuine pearl from a central bowl located in the middle of the sanctuary, that was carpeted in grass.

DOEprojekts participated beyond the "Art Meets Art" events at Documenta 15. We used our "Hybr Squares" (3-D) as an intervention on the Kassel Hauptbahnhof, where several other artists had created temporary works. Above: "Hybr Squares Standing," our sculpture in "Horizontal Newspaper," documenta fifteen Edition (Kassel), 2022, designed and initiated by Dan Perjovschi.

Above: "Hybr Squares Horizontal," temporary sculpture in "Horizontal Newspaper," documenta fifteen Edition (Kassel), 2022.

Above: "Here There," temporary sculpture in "Horizontal Newspaper," documenta fifteen Edition (Kassel), 2022. Public Space Drawing.

DOEprojekts participated in the Kassel East Urban Parcours, walking the 5-km route which featured many local businesses in Kassel (and also the Joseph Beuys Oak Trees, a social sculpture from Documenta 7 in 1982.)

Above: Kassel East Urban Parcours display at RuruHaus, with DOEprojekts' Hybr Square.

In the Documenta Halle, we participated in "Lumbung of Publishers," an area where art collaboratives could publish their Lumbung stories.

We also experimented with "Nang Yai" (story stencils) which traditionally depict gods and characters from the Ramayana epics -- and in Kassel, stories by the Brothers Grimm. The stencils on display were created by the Baan Noorg Collaborative from Thailand. Stencils and storytelling were featured in many parts of the Documenta Fifteen exhibition, including the following display in Kassel's Fridericianum:

Above: Handcut stencils from the Asia Art Archive, by Nilima Sheikh in collaboration with Sanjay Soni and the family of Vishnu Prasad Jadia from Mathura, 2000-2020.

We feel an aesthetic kinship with the stencilling cutting artists of Documenta Fifteen, and also with Ruangrupa's emphasis on art collaboration. Above: DOEprojekts' stencils.

We experienced so many wonderful events over the course of the week we spent at Documenta Fifteen -- we only wish we had had more time to experience even more! We were invited by one of the art collaborative members to join them in harvesting produce from their large garden, and then prepare a meal and eat it with them, but unfortunately we were leaving the next day for our Bauhaus residency. We look forward to attending Documenta Sixteen in 2027 when we hope to be invited to participate again.

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BAUHAUS Residency • DOEprojekts in Dessau, Germany

DOEprojekts Art Collaborative, co-directed by Deborah Adams Doering and Glenn N. Doering, received a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) for the 2019-2020 funding cycle, providing support for the Doerings to teach "Bauhaus and Beyond" at the Lenox Hill Community Center in Manhattan, NY. 

Our class highlighted many of the contemporary and international influences and achievements of the innovative art-design school that was founded in Weimar, Germany, in 1919. The school was closed by the Nazis in 1933. But the main Bauhaus campus still exists in Dessau, Germany.  

We had planned to do an artist residency at the Bauhaus-Dessau in the summer of 2020, as experiential and supplemental research for future classes. But then came the COVID pandemic. Our plans were put on hold.

Finally, happily, in Summer 2022, our plan to spend time researching and creating art at Bauhaus-Dessau became a reality! We are delighted to share some of our photos from our residency with our blog readers.

During the first part of our residency, we spent time in various rooms of the Bauhaus main building, designed by architect Walter Gropius, founder and first director of Bauhaus. 

On the left, Glenn is watching a presentation on how the students -- the "Bauhäuslers" -- contributed to the philosophy of the school with its integration of form and function of objects and images. These art-design works were created using new technologies of that time. On the right, Deborah is viewing "wearable art" (aka costumes) designed by Oskar Schlemmer, one of the "master teachers" at Bauhaus. The wearable art works were created using new technical tools and then worn in avant garde performances by both faculty and students. The Bauhaus was a fun place to live, study and experiment!

Not far from the school are the Meisterhäuser, the "Master Teacher Houses." We spent an afternoon touring two of the four houses open to visitors. During the time of the Bauhaus, Walter Gropius lived and worked in the house nearest the school. Unfortunately, his house was totally destroyed in WW2. But it is now being rebuilt, and will become an adjunct Bauhaus museum and study center.

The other houses were shared by "Master Teachers" such as Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. It was inspirational to view the inside of these creative spaces and learn how Bauhaus teachers inspired and collaborated with each other.

We were especially inspired by both the "modern forms" and the "performative" aspects of many of the Bauhaus works that we saw. In response, we decided to create a series of Bauhaus masks that would reflect our surroundings and integrate our DOEprojekts' Coreforms. 

We worked and stayed overnight in the dormitories of the Bauhaus, the original rooms designed by Gropius and some of his followers. Being in the actual environment formerly lived in by the Bauhäuslers ignited our imaginations!

After several days of dedicated work, we finished our series of Coreform-Bauhaus Masks. We printed one of our masks on several T-shirts. Below (left), we pose on our Bauhaus dormitory balcony wearing our T-shirts. On the right, Glenn waves from our Bauhaus balcony.

Someday, we hope to return to the Bauhaus for a longer artist residency. Until then, great memories of the time we were able to "study, work and play" in Summer 2022 will have to suffice!

We appreciate your interest and support of DOEprojekts!

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